The Creature, the Hole, and You
WARNING! Wal Mart aisles leading to flea annihilating supplies (Flea Bomb, 3 cans—$8.88—Thank you, Visa! and Flea Powder—$4.84) become as familiar to you as your daily commute along Iowan highways. While driving to your adjunct teaching job one day you hear NPR’s Neil Cunningham cajole the radio audience, “Call us, graduating class of 2009, and tell us how you’re doing.” You keep driving, though you glance at your cell phone. You could say, Hi, Neil—(then you’d get to the point real quick knowing full well that Neil cuts callers short if they dill-dally)—Man, I’m screwed, Neil. Fucked, really. You’d explain how your adjunct position terminates in a month due to half the student body quitting and, equally baffling, an editing gig dissipates without warning (no doubt Neil won’t care to hear about the local man you met who—yes, indeed—was quite interested in you, but cut if off after reading his astrological chart predicting he wouldn’t find his mate until 2012). It’s easier to curse a Creature and battle fleas than admit your future’s devoid of financial security or finding a soul mate on or offline. My advice: turn the radio off. You’ve got a long ride ahead of you. According to the Flea Bomb instructions—once the bombs are activated—you must wait two hours before it is safe to reenter your house—your house. Weeks ago, when winter drove autumn south and you finally closed the storm windows, you found heaping mounds of Creature shit directly beneath your bedroom windows on the porch roof. Dozens of them. Each prepared in a swirling pile, like macabre Dairy Queen ice cream cones. Let it go. Focus on what you have managed under the circumstances, such as: eventually the fleas die (strangely, only to be replaced by no-see-ems). Keep driving past the stubbled-faced corn and soybean fields. Slip in a CD. Crank the volume and feel the subtle rumble of bass shivering through you. Then, just as the music swells (before you see flashing lights in the rear view mirror), pull off the highway onto the road’s shoulder—note the gritty crunch of gravel beneath your boots over-riding the soundtrack—and step into the opening scene as the camera pans out to capture the blurry rise of Midwestern hills sloping far beyond you.